Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Gemma Doyle Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, mainly because, since I was elected at the last election, I have been contacted every single week by constituents who are concerned about the Government’s plans to shake up the benefit system—the so-called welfare revolution—and about what it will mean for them.

Universal credit was supposed to lie at the heart of that revolution, but it appears to be unravelling. The Secretary of State’s flagship project is descending into chaos; it is £100 million over budget and the timetable has slipped by several months. He needs to get a grip on it before it sinks and takes £2 billion of public money with it. I am surprised that he did not take the chance of a free transfer to another team to get him out of the mess.

A welfare project as all-encompassing as universal credit is too important to get wrong. We are not talking about numbers and schemes but about people having enough money to feed and clothe their children and keep warm. In Scotland we have experience of the Tory Government testing out their flawed policies and failing in the face of mass opposition, and I worry that this policy will be as disastrous as the poll tax. I sincerely hope that it will not.

One of the few things that most Members agree on is the importance of a welfare system that encourages people who are able to do so to look for work. It is very difficult for people to find a job at the moment, and if the Secretary of State is as compassionate as he makes out, he should recognise that when he does his tour round Glasgow. In West Dunbartonshire more than 19 people are chasing every job vacancy. At times in the past year that number has been as high as 40 and it continues to fluctuate.

The Government have cut the number of public sector jobs in West Dunbartonshire, including at Jobcentre Plus. The Scottish National party Government have excluded my constituency from any assistance such as from enterprise zones and the youth unemployment strategy fund despite the fact that when they announced the areas that would get money, West Dunbartonshire had the highest youth unemployment and had been named as the most difficult place in the whole of Scotland to find a job. The SNP continues to ignore us.

The people of West Dunbartonshire feel let down by both the UK and the Scottish Governments, and that may be one reason they booted out the SNP council and elected a Labour one in May. They have never elected a Tory council, I am glad to say. Even for those people who are in work, many are now worse off as a result of the Government’s changes to tax credits. The new criteria on minimum working hours mean that some families will be better off out of work and on benefits. Is that really what the Government want; is it what their Back Benchers want? I really do not think it is, so I suggest that they look again at the system.

It should never be the case that it is better to be on benefits than in work—[Interruption.] Well, this is what the Government are doing. If Government Members do not like it, I suggest that they tell their Government.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

So does the hon. Lady support the benefit caps that mean that some will be better off working? That is presumably why she voted against them.

[Gemma Doyle]

I want work to pay for everyone and what the Government are doing means that it does not for some families, and that is the black-and-white truth.

In West Dunbartonshire 200 households are set to lose up to £4,000 a year as a result of the Government’s changes and, with the jobs market already very difficult and businesses struggling to keep afloat, it is almost impossible for people to increase their working hours.

Unemployment in West Dunbartonshire was falling before the Government were elected, but under their stewardship of the economy it is rising again. What the Secretary of State and his Ministers forget is that when they make a decision the people who pick up the pieces are the volunteers and staff who try to help people through the welfare maze. That includes the staff in Jobcentre Plus and in my constituency it includes West Dunbartonshire welfare rights service, the Independent Resource Centre and the citizens advice bureau. They are all swamped at the moment. They help people with appeals and frequently win them because Atos has such a low rate of getting it right the first time around. Even for people who win their appeal the stress continues because they are soon sent for further assessment; they are knocked back, taken off benefit again and go into a never-ending cycle of appeals and assessments.

One of the organisations has told me that often claimants are told on the phone that they have been judged fit for work, and that the clock has started ticking on the time within which they can appeal, but that they cannot make that appeal before they receive the formal decision notice, which often does not appear until more than a week later. I would ask Ministers to look at this issue; I hope that it is not an attempt to squeeze the amount of time that claimants have to make an appeal. The delay is certainly making it more difficult. The organisations in my constituency have also raised with me the problem of the IT equipment used to move towards the online system.

I also want to raise briefly a specific concern about the replacement of disability living allowance with the new personal independence payment. Earlier this summer the Prime Minister apparently intervened to ensure that injured veterans would not have to undergo further assessments for PIP and to protect their benefits, but I understand that no definite protections have yet been put in place. I have been contacted by a veteran who is very concerned that only those who qualify for the armed forces compensation scheme will be covered by the protections and that pre-2005 veterans who were injured during their service and receive a war disablement pension will not be covered under the protections. I ask the Minister to look at that issue and hope that we will have some clarity on it soon.

There were elements of the universal credit that sounded promising, such as a simpler and more streamlined application process, but there are many outstanding concerns, as we have heard today. I support a welfare system that makes work pay. I would also support a Government who create work, but this Government are failing to do that.